


Solving the Big Problem

by KatieComma



Category: MacGyver (TV 2016)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-27
Updated: 2018-05-27
Packaged: 2019-05-14 08:40:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,361
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14766269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KatieComma/pseuds/KatieComma
Summary: When Jack thinks he's going to die, he gives Riley a stack of letters to give out to everybody.  But, just like always, Jack finds his way home and things get awkward when he finds out Mac has read his letter.





	Solving the Big Problem

Istanbul had been a total nightmare. And Jack Dalton was used to workplace related nightmares. But Istanbul had been Shanghai all over again. In the midst of a firefight they’d been separated: Mac on his own and Jack with Riley. No alternative in sight, Jack had sent Riley ahead while he ran head long into a suicide type situation. Didn’t think he was coming back from that one alive. All he’d wanted was for Riley and Mac to make it out safe.

But here he was back in the good ole L of A, walking into Mac’s house without knocking, per the usual; Family don’t knock.

“Hey Mac, you around?” He called out as he wandered into the kitchen. Jack dipped into the fridge and grabbed two beers before he headed for the deck.

Mac was sitting at the fire pit. The sky was beginning to get dark and there was a small fire crackling away.

“Hey man,” Jack greeted, sitting down next to Mac to look out at the California skyline. He held out the second beer to his partner, who took it and immediately set it aside. Jack shrugged, cracked his own brew, and took a swig.

Mac was fiddling with a piece of paper in his hands and staring intently at the fire the way he did when he was thinking on something serious, or when he was mad at Jack. No reason for him to be mad at Jack: Mission had been a success.

“What you fiddlin’ with there hoss?” Jack asked, leaning forward, elbows on his knees.

Mac flicked the paper with his hand and let the letter unfold until it was backlit by the fire and easy to read.

Jack sat back. She didn’t. She wouldn’t. “Now hold on,” Jack said, suddenly serious. “Just you wait a minute-”

“What the hell is this?” Mac asked, holding the letter closer to Jack, but still staring into the fire.

“Come on now, Riley wasn’t supposed to give you that,” Jack said, his face flush with embarrassment mixed with anger. What was that girl thinking? Just before Jack had run headlong into that gunfire in Istanbul, he’d taken out the letters he kept tucked inside his vest and given them to Riley. He’d been very clear in his instruction: if he didn’t come back, she should hand them out. There was one for each of them: Mac, Riley, Matty and Bozer. Bozer’s was pretty sparse, there wasn’t much left unsaid between them, but he didn’t want the poor guy left out. It had been a long time since he’d been in a situation where he thought those letters would be put to use. Mac almost always got them out of wherever before Jack even considered handing them out.

Jack’s face went serious as he looked at the letter. He hadn’t read it for a while, but there it was, staring him in the face. Phrases like: “since I stayed with you in Afghanistan” “the number of times I almost watched you die” “sharing my life with you,” all jumped out at him.

Jack set his beer down, ducked his head and ran his hands through his short-cropped hair. This wasn’t right. He hadn’t intended to be here after that letter was read.

“What was she supposed to do with it?” Mac asked, his voice sober and solemn.

“She was supposed to give it back to me on the damn plane when we regrouped,” Jack protested. “Sometimes that girl just don’t listen.” He wanted to reach out and snatch the paper from the air, as if that would reverse everything and prevent it from being read.

Mac’s letter used to say something really different. It used to be half-truths and companionable encouragement. But then Sarah got married and he thought a lot about telling people the truth before it was too late. It didn’t take a lot for Jack to realize that telling someone that stuff after he was dead was way too late, but better late than never he always said. He hadn’t really thought that one through too well.

“So you’re saying you wish I hadn’t read this?” Mac asked, still staring into the flames, his face a cold unreadable mask.

It was bad. Now things were going to be all super weird between them.

“Yeah,” Jack said quietly. “Can we just pretend you didn’t?”

Mac crumpled the letter and tossed it into the fire, just like it was a piece of garbage. Jack resisted the urge to shove his hand into the flames and grab the letter back. It was hard to let go of something that you’d poured so much of yourself into, but he restrained himself. 

“Yeah, let’s just forget it,” Mac replied. He picked up his beer but didn’t hold out his bottle to clink against Jack’s and they finished their brews in silence.

Of all the things he wished Mac could make, a time machine was topping the list. If things really were back to normal Jack would have suggested it out loud, but instead he kept his lips sealed.

They watched the letter curl up in the fire and turn to ashy confetti that rode the waves of heat up into the night.

 

 

Jack trudged up the stairs to his apartment. With each step his feet felt heavier and heavier, like they were made of lead. Night was in full swing, and after that awkward beer at Mac’s all he wanted was to fall into bed and have a good long sleep. Maybe in the morning things would look different.

He was still looking down at the steps when he heard Riley’s voice above him.

“I am so sorry Jack,” she said.

She’d been sitting at the top of the stairs waiting for him, and she stood up when he reached her.

“Sorry for what Ri?” He asked. He tried to sound pissed, but it came out tired instead.

“I shouldn’t have given Mac that letter,” she admitted, looking him in the eye.

It was actually refreshing for someone to look him in the eye.

“You were only s’posed to give those out if I didn’t come back,” Jack scolded.

“I know,” she said.

“Did you give the other ones out too?” He asked, stepping past her, onto the landing, and unlocking the door.

Riley followed him into his apartment. “No,” she said. “Once I saw Mac’s reaction I kept the rest of them.” She threw two letters down onto his kitchen counter.

“Well unless my countin’ skills have really gone south there’s one more missin’ here darlin’,” he said, picking up the letters addressed to Matty and Bozer. Those letters didn’t really matter anyway. There wasn’t anything in them that could cause any real harm. Not like Mac’s letter.

“I read mine on the way home,” Riley admitted. A smile crossed her face. “I wanna keep it.”

Jack threw his hands up. “You just go on ahead,” Jack sighed. “But I’m tellin’ you right now that you ain’t gettin’ another one. So when my time comes and they pull out letters for everybody else and you don’t get one that’s your own damn fault.”

Her eyes were a little misty, and she pulled him into a big hug. “Thanks Jack,” she whispered, her voice hoarse with emotion. “I love you too.”

Jack wrapped his arms tight around her for a big ole bear hug. Who was he kidding? He couldn’t stay mad at her. Unless she did something really awful like cut down Bruce Willis or ruin his favorite Metallica t-shirt, she’d never stay in his bad books for long.

“It’s alright Ri,” he said, pulling her in tighter. “No harm, no foul.”

Riley backed up again and sat at his kitchen counter. “So, what did Mac’s letter say anyway? To get him so screwed up?”

Jack leaned toward her on the counter. “Now what exactly do you mean by ‘so screwed up?’” Jack asked.

“I asked first,” Riley said definitely.

“Well I ain’t tellin’,” he replied. “It’s private.”

“Alright, alright,” she said. “Well, the look on his face was like when he gets an idea, but he’s still figuring it out. Like he wants to make something, but he’s not sure if he needs to pull apart your phone or just strip the metal out of your boots.”

Jack scratched the back of his head. “That reminds me,” he said, pulling the front half of his phone from his pocket and dropping it on the counter. Pretty much all that was left was the screen. “Gonna need to get another one of those tomorrow.”

“You’re killing me here,” Riley complained. “What did it say?”

“None of your beeswax Riley,” Jack said. “And it’s not like you can hack a piece of paper to figure it out.”

 

 

It was barely dawn when the knocking woke Jack up from a dreamless sleep. He didn’t feel rested.

The knocking was insistent.

“Yeah, yeah,” Jack mumbled as he rolled out of bed and shrugged into a t-shirt from the floor.

The knocking grew louder. They were going to wake up the neighbors.

“Hold your horses,” he called out, “I’m comin’ already.” On the way by the nightstand he grabbed his pistol and tucked it into the back of his boxer briefs. He’d been ambushed once at his door when he was half asleep, and he wasn’t going to let that happen again.

Jack swung open the door. “What?” He demanded. “Do you have an idea what time-”

“I do, actually,” Mac said, stepping through the threshold and into the apartment before he was invited. “It’s just after six.”

Jack closed the door. “Good god Mac,” he said, “that’s way too early for normal people. Especially on a well earned day off. I almost died yesterday you know?” And there it was, he’d blurted it out like an idiot and brought the conversation back to the letter again already.

“Yeah, I know,” Mac said. “Well actually, with the time difference it was more like two days ago now.”

“You’re pretty chipper this mornin’,” Jack said, sitting on one of the bar stools and rubbing at his eyes. He pulled his gun out from his waistband and set it on the counter.

“I was up late thinking,” Mac said.

“What about this time?” Jack asked.

“Actually, I was thinking about your letter.”

Jack’s ears perked up and he stopped rubbing his eyes to look at Mac. His face wasn’t cold like it had been the night before. Riley was right, he looked like he’d figured out one of his ideas; Blue eyes bright and excited, hands folded together, index fingers pointed out.

“Listen Mac,” Jack said, “I thought we talked about this. We should just forget-”

Mac cut him off. “I was thinking about that night in Afghanistan. We were in that bunker and it got so cold. Anything I could make to get us warm would have signaled the enemy. So we had to huddle together to stay warm. Do you remember that?” Mac was looking him in the eye. That was a good sign, right?

Jack nodded. “Sure do. It was colder than the shady side of an iceberg in that damn bunker.”

“That was right after you came back,” Mac said. “When you decided to sign up for another tour so you could watch my back. And we were stuck in that bunker and I remember thinking: I’ve never been so lucky for someone to have my back.”

Jack remembered that day. That decision hadn’t taken him two shakes of a lamb’s tail before he signed back up to have Mac’s back. It was true what he’d said to him: Jack knew he was important, that he had big things ahead of him. But there was more to it than that. Mac’s letter had said as much.

“Two way street bro,” Jack replied. “You’ve pulled me outta scrapes more times’n I can count.”

Mac nodded. “What it really comes down to Jack,” he started slowly, like he was really thinking about each word so he didn’t say the wrong thing, “is that letter. It’s not something I could ever forget. But do you really want me to forget it?”

“You weren’t supposed to read it unless I was gone,” Jack reiterated.

“Why not?” Mac asked. “When you’re gone it’s too late.”

“Yeah but now it’s gonna be all super weird between us,” Jack started to hum and haw over the situation, looking down at the floor to avoid the awkwardness building between them.

“Not if I’m here to tell you that I feel the same way,” Mac said.

Jack looked up to see Mac smiling. And it was that smile he put on when he’s figured out a problem he’s been thinking on for a good long time and finally got to the solution.

Jack narrowed his eyes suspiciously. It couldn’t be true, not after Mac had burnt the letter the night before?

“See I’d never really thought about it before,” Mac continued, “because it didn’t occur to me as an option that was available. But I sat up all night thinking about it, and it’s always been there.” He walked over to Jack and put a hand on his chest. “It’s always been right there in front of me. No matter what, we’ve always got each other. It always comes back to us.”

Jack opened his mouth to say something, but hadn’t planned on what to say, so nothing came out.

“Jack Dalton, speechless,” Mac laughed. “Never thought I’d see that day.”

Jack stood up, held Mac’s shoulders and leaned in toward him. Just before their lips met they both hesitated and pulled back. This was new ground for both of them. Neither of them, to Jack’s knowledge, had ever been with anybody but women. Then, suddenly, the tension between them broke like a wall falling down, and their mouths met. Soft at first, testing the waters, and then more intense until they finally opened up and really tasted each other.

Maybe this was why they’d always had terrible luck with women; That was never where they were supposed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> I've been wanting to try this ship out for a while... and saw this awesome writing prompt on Tumblr that totally inspired this:
> 
> A character rips up a letter  
> -who is it to? who is it from? why are they destroying it? 
> 
> -is it incriminating evidence or maybe a sappy love letter? 
> 
> -chaos bonus: they rip it right in someone’s face for maximum effect
> 
> @writingprompts365


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